Education

Groundbreaking set this spring for UHS Sports Complex

MORGANTOWN - Hope springs eternal, the poem in your great-grandma's anthology from English class reads.

So will the promise of baseball to come ... this spring at University High School.

That's when ground is expected to be broken to launch the construction of the school's UHS Sports Complex, a $4 million expanse featuring ballfields, tennis courts and more.

"We're just thrilled to be at this point," Nancy Pride Raley said this past spring in Morgantown.

"This is for Duke," she said. "It's really for University High."

Raley is referring to her brother, the late Ronald "Duke" Pride, perhaps the most noteworthy athlete in the history of their shared alma mater.

Duke Pride, who graduated in 1963, was a varsity star who once pulled down a memorable 54 points in a basketball game.

His big sister thought he was lying - she saw the story in The Dominion Post the following morning.

She and her husband John, who was also a good athlete at UHS, pledged $1 million to the sports complex two years ago to give it a quicker nudge to the finish line.

Now, backers of the project are reminding people and businesses that it's still not too late to donate.

Corporate donors are especially welcome, they said.

Visit www.uhssportscomplex.com for project updates and to learn how you can donate.

Riley likes the idea that the memory of Duke will reside in the confines of the expanse for future generations of UHS Hawks.

"I can still picture him," she said.

"He's playing sandlot ball. He's laughing with his buddies. Everybody loved Duke."

Duke died suddenly of a pulmonary embolism in 1970 at the age of 25. He was back from his military service and was an education major at then Fairmont State College, just down the road.

He was doing his student teaching at tiny Fairview High in outlying Marion County.

After his death, his students did something that was very moving for the family, Raley said.

"They wrote letters to us," she said.

"That was his real legacy. He would have been a great teacher."